2025 Toyota Camry Carefully Evolves

Although the Toyota Camry has been usurped by the brand's RAV4 crossover as the bestselling vehicle in the U.S. that isn't a pickup truck, nearly 300,000 of Toyota's family sedans still found homes last year. We're clearly not alone in preferring the lower starting price, greater fuel efficiency, and tidier driving dynamics that sedans generally hold over their utilitarian kin. But radically altering the Camry's formula is something Toyota doesn't take lightly, which meant cautious evolution led the way for its ninth-generation redesign.

If you don't glimpse the 2025 Camry's chiseled front end and gaping maw, it easily can be mistaken for the outgoing model that it mirrors in almost every dimension. As before, SE and XSE trim levels are billed as the sportier versions, featuring black grille accents and a more responsive chassis versus the LE and XLE's chrome trim and softer setup.

The big changes are under the surface, where all grades feature Toyota's fifth-gen hybrid powertrain. An Atkinson-cycle 2.5-liter four-cylinder continues to be the hybrid's prime mover, gaining an extra eight horsepower for 184 in total, bolstered by 163 pound-feet of torque. Likewise, a more powerful traction motor (134 horses, up from 118) works with a second motor that choreographs the hybrid system's planetary gearset so it ultimately acts like a continuously variable transmission. Total output climbs from 208 ponies to 225. Opt for the $1525 electrified all-wheel-drive system—a first for the Camry hybrid—with its own 40-hp rear-axle motor shared with the Prius AWD, and that combined figure creeps up to 232 horsepower.

A lithium-ion battery with an estimated usable capacity of 0.6 kilowatt-hour sits under the back seat, and Toyota figures a combined fuel economy range of 44 to 51 mpg depending on the model (EPA estimates aren't available yet). That's 2 mpg worse on the low end for an all-wheel-drive XSE versus an outgoing XSE hybrid that lacked AWD and 1 mpg below the thriftiest front-drive version. But considering the last Camry hybrid we tested, a 2018 XLE model, returned 44 mpg on our 75-mph highway test and averaged 40 mpg overall, any version of the new car will be far stingier at the pump than previous gas-only models, which topped out at 32 mpg combined.